Scharnhorst and several destroyers sortied from Norway to attack a convoy but British naval patrols intercepted the German force. In early 1943, Scharnhorst joined the Bismarck-class battleship Tirpitz in Norway to interdict Allied convoys to the Soviet Union. In early 1942, after British bombing raids, the two ships made the Channel Dash up the English Channel from occupied France to Germany. In that engagement Scharnhorst achieved one of the longest-range naval gunfire hits in history. During operations off Norway, the two ships engaged the battlecruiser HMS Renown and sank the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious as well as her escort destroyers Acasta and Ardent. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau participated in Operation Weserübung (April–June 1940), the German invasion of Norway. During her first operation, Scharnhorst sank the armed merchant HMS Rawalpindi in a short engagement (November 1939). Scharnhorst and Gneisenau operated together for much of the early portion of World War II, including sorties into the Atlantic to raid British merchant shipping. Plans to replace these weapons with six 38 cm (15 in) SK C/34 guns in twin turrets were never carried out. Completed in January 1939, the ship was armed with a main battery of nine 28 cm (11 in) C/34 guns in three triple turrets. The ship was built at the Kriegsmarinewerft dockyard in Wilhelmshaven she was laid down on 15 June 1935 and launched a year and four months later on 3 October 1936. She was the lead ship of her class, which included her sister ship Gneisenau. Scharnhorst was a German capital ship, alternatively described as a battleship or battlecruiser, of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine.

Scharnhorst immer voran ( Scharnhorst ever onward) Gerhard Johann von Scharnhorst (1755–1813)

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